Page 20 of Cora

“On it,” Isaac responded. Derrick and Trent stayed out of the way while I stood against the railing directly in front of the door. The zombie inside slammed against the door, trying to get to me. “Ready?”

I nodded, and Isaac pulled the door open, staying behind it as the zombie shot out. I played my favorite game of chicken with him, perhaps a smidge longer than I should have, jumping out of the way at the last possible second. The zombie sailed past me and over the railing, practically exploding on impact. “Gross,” I said, looking at the ground below.

“Sometimes you play too much,” Trent growled as he passed me to go inside.

I knew he was right, but after the world went to shit, I had a hard time taking myself or anything else seriously. Life was just too fucking short to bother. When your time was up, there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do to stop the inevitable. I looked down at the poor S.O.B. who died up here all alone and then raised my eyes to take in the view. I made a low whistle as my eyes traveled over the mountain range. Up here, you could see for miles. I walked around to the side of the tower where I knew the house was. I saw it in the clearing below, tucked away out of sight.

“You know,” I said, walking inside, “maybe this guy is the same guy that built the house.”

“I told you,” Derrick replied.

“Why do you say that?” Isaac asked.

“Because the only place the house can be seen from is the tower,” I replied. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“It would explain why the house was abandoned,” Trent agreed.

I looked around the room. A large desk had a radio, papers, and maps. A pullout couch sat in one corner, and a small kitchenette sat in the other. The bathroom was in the third corner beside the desk, and the door was in the final corner. “This will do nicely as an escape house. We should decide what supplies we want to store here and perhaps install some ropes on that first climb up to the road to make our escape easier if necessary.”

“We don’t have much in the way of dry goods to store safely,” Isaac said. “We need to hunt and restock on meat. Then we can make jerky and leave it up here.”

“Speaking of,” Derrick said, “Trent, toss me my bear jerky, will ya?”

Trent dug through the bag and then looked at Derrick. “It isn’t in here.”

“What do you mean it isn’t there?” Derrick demanded. “You said you got all the jerky from the table, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it should be in there. I left it on the table last night.” Derrick snatched the bag from Trent and started rifling through it like a madman. He had a weird obsession with that bear jerky.

He dumped the bag’s contents out on the coffee table to search better. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, his head slowly rose to glare at the three of us one by one.

“Which one of you dickheads ate the rest of my fucking jerky?”

“Wasn’t me,” I said, raising my hands in surrender.

“Not it,” Trent said quickly.

Derrick’s eyes slowly moved toward Isaac.

“Stop looking at me like that, you nut job. I didn’t eat your precious jerky, either. Maybe you didn’t leave it on the table,” Isaac suggested.

“I know where I left it,” Derrick growled.

“Maybe your ghost girl ate them while we were sleeping,” I suggested with a chuckle.

Derrick’s eyes widened.

“It was a fucking joke,” I laughed.

“But it could be possible. I know I saw her, and she wasn’t a fucking ghost. Now we have food disappearing, not for the first time, mind you,” Derrick said.

“So your theory is that there is a girl living in the small two-bedroom cabin with us, but none of us have bumped into her,” Isaac said.

Derrick thought about it for a second and then nodded. “Yes.”

“Seriously?” Trent laughed. “You probably just stashed them in a cupboard and forgot.”

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